Stale loaf from a famous French bakery. (16 pp. b&w photographs, not seen)
A familiar, cursory look at Napoleon’s accomplishments and failures: martial, civil, and cultural.
The British author of several painters’ biographies, Wilson-Smith has written about Bonaparte before from that point of view (Napoleon and His Artists, not reviewed). Here, he divides his brief work into two principal sections. The first summarizes Napoleon’s rise to power, his stunning series of military victories, the growth and decline of the French empire, Waterloo, Elba, St. Helena, and death. (The author takes no position on the question of murder by poison.) For those who have read elsewhere of Napoleon or paid attention in Western Civ, there is not much new save an occasional gripping detail—e.g., the forces of Wellington and Napoleon camped only about 5,000 yards apart the night before the Big One. Too often, Wilson-Smith reaches into his analogy kit and comes up with the unremarkable: “The last and most terrible person to try to play a Napoleonic role in Europe was Adolf Hitler.” The second half points out Bonaparte’s other well-known achievements: stimulating scholarly interest in Egypt (the author cracks wise, noting that Napoleon “looked ridiculous” in a kaftan and turban), establishing and perhaps even perfecting the French bureaucracy, creating and formalizing the Code Napoléon, doing good deeds in public finance and education, building roads, and supporting some artists and writers. Once again, an occasional detail with a keen edge or a crisp sentence animates the text: Wilson-Smith notes that the French killed some 15,000 wolves between 1805–15 to protect their livestock and observes that Bonaparte “disliked clever women and suspected that those who could look after themselves were not truly feminine.” He ends by expressing a more-than-grudging admiration for the general responsible for some five million deaths and unimaginable destruction. Of genuine interest are Wilson-Smith’s analyses of the various 19th-century paintings of the Emperor.
Stale loaf from a famous French bakery. (16 pp. b&w photographs, not seen)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7867-1089-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2002
A Wall Street trader exercises a rich man’s prerogative and offers financial advice and his life story. “See how much money I made!” is the message. “I’m pretty smart and damned tough, too.” To be sure, Schwartz (“Buzzy” to his pals) is the prototypical hard driver, a truly successful day trader, buying and selling in lightning strokes for his own account. His is a talent for exquisite market timing, a tricky game for even the most proficient professionals. His specialty is S&P futures, a technique using the marvel of leverage to greatly multiply the chances for gain—or loss—on each tick. It requires an inordinate amount of research as well as stamina, acumen, and nerve, but it can be worth millions every year. The alternative, as Buzzy frets, is “going tapioca.” Buzzy dearly wanted his kids to say, “ ‘My daddy’s the Champion Trader!’ That was all I cared about,” he admits. With success came Lutäce lunches, expensive artworks, Armani suits, Bally alligator shoes, and other trophies. Schwartz essays a little false humility, but the book’s evasive charm is based on chutzpah. In an effort to leverage with OPM (other people’s money), the author established his own hedge funds until investors (the bastards) pestered him about their money. Don’t be surprised to learn the result was heart disease. Now in Florida, trading again for himself, the quondam Champion Trader reveals, with some repetition, his story. It moves nicely, though, with a certain egomaniacal verve. An appendix gives the author’s daily schedule (e.g, “7:20-7:30 Clean out the plumbing”). His investment methodology is also appended, but only the most devoted professional will utilize this rigorous lesson. An archetypal text, true to life on the Street, destined to be discussed over drinks at trader hangouts after the market closes—and better than going tapioca. (Author tour; radio satellite tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-88-730876-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1998
Distilled from published or televised sources, this biography of Reeve from troubled childhood to triumphant re-emergence into public life focuses more on what he’s done than who he is. As a precis of his acting career and post-accident involvement in medical and social causes, this outdoes its nearest competitor, Libby Hughes’s Christopher Reeve (1997, not reviewed) in small—and sometimes insignificant—details while carrying his story forward to early 1998 (ending before he took on the remake of Rear Window last year, and lacking any mention of his autobiography, Still Me). A mix of posed full-color and black-and- white shots, show Reeve in school, on the stage, in his films, with his family, and appearing at public events; endnotes, plus a generous list of articles and books, will launch readers searching for insight into his career, if not his person. Utilitarian and coherent. (index) (Biography. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 11, 1999
ISBN: 0-8225-4945-X
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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